18 Washington beers were competing in the 1st round of the Brewing News National IPA Championship this past weekend. Hopefully, you filled out your bracket and are in the running to win a case of the winning IPA once the tournament is over.

The first round matchups for Washington beers are below, with the winning beer in bold. The competition is stiff for this event, and overall WA took quite a beating. With 18 beers entered, just 5 advanced to the 2nd round. And, 2 of those advanced against other WA beers…so WA had to win. This speaks volumes about the quality of beer that is being made all over the country these days.

Congrats to all of the breweries that advanced, and I hope to see all the others competing back here again next year.

Not sure how that makes it flawed? It’s just a fun contest to have IPAs from all over the country face off against each other, regardless of where they are/aren’t available. This is not a region specific event.
Maybe someday the Northwest Brewing News will do something similar that focuses on just IPAs from the NW…